


prince of thieves

by straddling_the_atmosphere



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Canon Compliant, Fairy Tale Elements, Fairy Tale Style, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-19
Updated: 2019-01-19
Packaged: 2019-10-12 18:26:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17472689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/straddling_the_atmosphere/pseuds/straddling_the_atmosphere
Summary: Once upon a time there was a man.Prince of the pirates, prince of thieves, gorgon’s hair covering his face like a mask. John Silver stands in the middle of the dusty road in Nassau and stares at the carnage around him.





	prince of thieves

**Author's Note:**

> prompt: fairy tale-esque silverflint. someone shapeshifts, someone's locked in a tower,someone is a prince in disguise. you know, whatever trope floats ur boat!

Once upon a time there was a man.

Prince of the pirates, prince of thieves, gorgon’s hair covering his face like a mask. John Silver stands in the middle of the dusty road in Nassau and stares at the carnage around him, at Beringer’ body, throat cut and still sluggishly bleeding, eyes open and unseeing. He catches the eye of someone in the window of an inn before the curtain flicks over the window. His horse paws at the ground, tail flicking to chase the flies away, and he gently pets her neck, damp with sweat from the heat and exertion.

Across the street, Flint looks up and Silver meets his gaze, tipping his chin up. Something passes between them, an exchanging of the torch, and when Flint drags his eyes away, a tense part inside of Silver uncoils.

Once upon a time there was a man.

He can hear the commotion of the world just beyond his window, and he weakly drags himself upright on the bed. His gaze skips over the empty part below his knee and he clenches his hands in the sheets.

Someone opens the door, carrying a glass of water. “You’re awake,” Max says, pausing at the doorway. Silver swallows around his dry throat and nods, watching as she makes her way over and hands him the glass.

“How long have I been out?” he rasps. The last thing he remembers is the way Flint’s face had gone drawn and pale with anger when he’d said that awful lie about the gold.

“A few days,” she says. “Your men brought you here to recover.”

Silver winces, not wanting to think about them carrying him. “Why up so high?” From the view he can make out from the window, this has to be near the top floor, and he feels trapped, like in a cell, a tower away from everything and everyone.

“They were afraid you might make a run for it,” she says dryly.

Silver snorts. “With what? One leg?”

“You are far too wily for them to underestimate you.”

Silver huffs and stares outside, still holding onto the glass of water. He can hear Max moving around the room, can see her from the corner of his eyes.

“There is the matter of your share of the gold,” she says, coming to stand at the end of his bed, fingers curling around the empty water pitcher. Silver has to look away from her knowing eyes.

“Get rid of it,” he says. “Split it amongst you and Jack. I don’t care. Just get rid of it.”

She raises her eyebrows but doesn’t look surprised. “Why?”

“You know why.”

“This place,” she says, voice low and musing. “These people. Somehow keeps you here when all you want to do is run. Like some kind of magic, isn’t it?”

Silver wets his lips, feeling the dry cracked skin under his tongue, his breath rasping in his chest. “Or something,” he agrees softly, and doesn’t speak to her again.

Once upon a time there was a man, dark as the shadows and silent as one too.

There is something about Flint in the headwrap, in all black, just the glitter of his eyes visible as he silently makes his way to the cabin after a raid. Silver follows, jaw clenching at the pain in his leg where the stump chafes against the leather strap. Flint drops his saber with a clatter, and his hands drip red, bright with blood. Silver wonders, as he always does when he reaches out unpin the cloth around his mouth, if the man he unwraps is much of a man at all.

If one day the creature he’ll unveil is the ghoulish, howling twin hidden inside of his own chest, clawing at his ribcage. If one day, instead of that strangely soft, vulnerable mouth, he’ll see bared teeth, fangs glinting against the red of his beard.

Flint looks at him suddenly, eyes shifting, wild and awake and present in a way Flint so rarely is these days, and Silver pauses, his fingers hooked in the cloth, almost cupping his jaw. They stay like that, two changed creatures pushed together by fate and circumstance, by wretched decisions and reluctant camaraderie.

Once upon a time there were two men, close as any two men could be. And then there was only one. There is no ending to this that is true, and there is no ending to this story that is false. It is simply an end, happily ever after or not. 

**Author's Note:**

> come chat with my @ tomasortega on tumblr!


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